I was born in a town called Norwich, CT in 1958, but basically grew up in a small New England coastal town in the 60's and 70's. I was the youngest son in a typical 3 child middle-class family. I shall offer a little background from my childhood before delving into what turned out to be years of drug abuse and hard drinking that took me to places I never dreamed I'd go.
My sister did very well in school (was quick to pick things up and rather brilliant, although I would have never admitted it to her then). My brother, 9 years older than me, was something of a mystery because he was always off with his friends in undisclosed locations (I can't blame him - I doubt I would want my little brother tagging along very often). Of the three of us, he was the most independent and, as it turns out, the most successful in his career and business endeavors. For me, as a young man, I chased the allure of mediocrity - which I thought was easily obtainable and a safe place to be. Just doing enough to get by in elementary school was OK for me, as I didn't face any tough consequences. As long as I didn't do anything to cause embarrassment to the family, I tended to be ignored academically. I did better in junior high and even better than that in high school, as I fell in with a crowd I was comfortable with and thought I had found my niche. This comfort I later discovered was short-lived.
By the time I was a senior in high school, I was feeling an increasing sense of non-conformity and wanted very much to fit in somewhere. I had accepted the reality of Jesus as my Lord and Savior--but my spiritual growth in Him was short-lived as I spent less and less time in fellowship with other Christians and studying His Word. I found myself trying to hide from Him more and more so I could do satisfy the urges of the flesh I had. Some of the people I hung with had started to smoke cigarettes. So guess what I did? I embarked on an addiction that would span a few decades and cost me an untold fortune. Alas, if it only stopped with that!
When I left high school, I went to school that fall at a small college called Eastern in Willimantic. Eastern was an easy school to get into and not too expensive by collegiate standards. By that time, I had little or no contact with other Christians and was spending less and less time in prayer, trying to build on my relationship with Jesus. Eastern was conveniently located near a place called 'the Shaboo Inn' and several other drinking establishments. With no parents around to slow me down, my drinking really began to take off.
Before long, the drugs arrived on the scene. First it was pot, harmless at first, and then other things like crystal meth, LSD and angel dust. This was to continue for many years. Alcohol had been my first love but I was perfectly willing to supplement it with anything that came along. My shame proliferated and i felt unworthy to approach God and ask for any help. Perhaps I just wished to remain in that sin and reap all of the instant gratifications it seemed to afford me at the time. I know there was a sense of emptiness and the shame was a serious indicator that deep down inside I knew the way I was living was wrong and certainly not in accordance with what I know was God's desire for me. One immoral act would lead to another and another on my road to self-destruction.
When I left college, I went to work for General Dynamics (Electric Boat) in Groton where we built nuclear submarines. I joined the pipe-fitters department as a pipe hanger where I worked for the next three years or so. I loved it - because it was a drinker’s paradise. Everybody ran out the gate at lunch time to their favorite bar, had a few and maybe brought something back in the pocket of their coat or pants.
I left E.B. because I knew I would be found out (I really didn’t do much but party while I was there) and went t work for Cumberland Farms and then the jobs began to come and go at a good clip, spiraling downward in pay and responsibility – but enough to keep a roof over my head and continue to party regularly.
Eventually I left New London and returned to Mystic, where I took jobs in various restaurants - finally settling on food service as a career which would span the next eighteen years or so. Aside from small bouts with abstinence for health reasons, my drinking and drug usage got worse. I would make friends and get involved in various relationships, but nothing would last like my drinking and drug use did.
BACK IN MYSTIC
Once back in Mystic and safely tucked away in my parent’s house, I really took off and they were getting more and more disgusted to the point where the wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
Eventually I wound up working as a Kitchen Manager in a large steak house in Mystic where I stayed for the next 8+ years. I supervised several people and thought I had arrived! The place was alive with partying all the time – work hard, party harder! By now I was in love with the drug cocaine, because it would afford me the opportunity to stay up and drink all night. The majority of my paycheck would go to it. Slowly at first - then more quickly, my possessions began to disappear as I sold them off to keep partying the way I thought I wanted to. It was a sad, desperate time in my life as I became more and more consumed by drugs and alcohol and lost the freedom of choice in the matter.
GETTING DESPERATE
Finally one day I began to give serious consideration to ending my life. I had a couple of guns in my closet and started to ponder the possibility of escaping this world once and for all. Not that I really wanted to do it – I was scared of that, having come from a religious background that cried foul at the thought of suicide and condemned anyone to hell that did it. For some reason I got down on my knees that morning and asked God to help me. He still loved me, although I had little faith in that truth at the time--how could anyone love me after the way I had betrayed and forsaken Him? Of course, today I know that God is not just 'anybody.' This time I didn't explain how I wanted Him to do it – just help. When I got to work that day a guy named Frank who worked there as a lunch cook had just recently returned from a 28 day program in Stonington and had remained clean. I asked him about the program and he proceeded on and off throughout the day to give me little tidbits about it, occasionally throwing in the invitation to go with him to one of the meetings.
FINDING MY WAY: ROUND 1
Finally I agreed to go with Frank to a meeting that night. It was a Monday night and it was a meeting of N.A. In New London. It seemed to be a large meeting (they all seemed that way to me back then, for the most part). When I entered the room I was introduced to several people and ushered to a seat near the front. In my arrogance, I considered it to be a seat of honor – as obviously somebody knew who I was. I was soon to learn that I was placed squarely in the sick row!
I really don't remember a whole lot about that night, other than the way I was feeling when I entered the room versus the way I felt when I left - and the woman who told her story. I can't remember her face, the sound of her voice or even the things she said – but I do know they were words that described the events of my life pretty closely and feelings I could clearly identify with. When I left there I had to return to work to take care of the end of the month inventory. As was the usual case at the restaurant I worked at, the cocaine was flowing and the party was cranking up. I amazed myself by not using. Every time I considered having a beer or doing a line, something somebody said or a feeling they conveyed at the meeting would occur to me and the desire to use or drink would dissipate. I managed to make it through the night without using. For the next year I stayed clean and attended primarily N.A. Meetings.
Toward the end of the first year, people tried to warn me about the path I was heading down – but, of course, I couldn't see it. I had recently begun attending a guys-only A.A. Meeting and was quite beguiled by it. I asked the man who started and ran the meeting to be my sponsor and he agreed. It was the amazement of a new life I had desperately sought (or so I thought). I guess I thought that attending that meeting (and having the sponsor I did) would be enough to assure a good life free from drugs and alcohol where everything went my way. When I reflect on that time, the only thing that changed during that period was that I was not using drugs or drinking – nothing more.
As is often the case with people who don't use – but also don't change anything else, the idea of a drink or drug began once again to appeal to me. I had taken credit for the turn-around in my life – things went reasonably well at work and I had a few bucks in my pocket. Yes, what a great job I had done that year!
I had not taken the time or made the effort to lead a self-examined life through the 12 steps and, hence, had changed nothing much about myself or my attitudes. I was still the same self-centered, egocentric individual who first walked through the door a year earlier. That being said, there was no relationship with any Higher Power that is often gained through the process of recovery in the steps; thus, I had no defense against the first drink when the strange mental blank spot arrived and the obsession resurfaced. had no clue as to what the program actually meant – I only knew a little about the fellowship and somehow thought that it alone would be enough. How seriously wrong I was and how much that error ended up costing me down the road in the things I did to myself and those around me.
Finally the night arrived when I had decided there was no harm in taking a drink -- especially if I changed my usual style and made a screwdriver (there happened to be vodka in the house and O.J., so the decision of what to have was an easy one). It wasn't log before I exited the property in my car across the front lawn vs. the driveway in search of my next drink and some cocaine to accompany it.
I don't remember much of that night, save going to a restaurant a former co-worker was at to make a connection for some stuff. Some where along the line I got a ticket, too – which I found on the dash of my car the next day. How I didn't get arrested is beyond me. I was commonly a blackout drinker when I drank – wasn't everybody?
When I came to the next day and realized what had happened, I thought of my friend Charlie from N.A., who had tried to warn me that I was heading toward a relapse – he saw the reservation I had as plain as day. Apparently, so did my sponsor. I went to see him that afternoon and he knew what I had done before I opened my mouth. I asked him why I did it and he said (in an elevated volume) because I wanted to. I had not thoroughly followed any path and retained a reservation that told me that one day I could and would drink again. My love affair with booze and drugs was not over.
I began a half-hearted attempt at the steps but stalled when it came time to contemplate 4. I decided that there was no need to share everything with somebody – most people I knew knew some piece of my life's story - so it was largely out in the open. I somehow misinterpreted the 4th step and considered it some sort of catholic confessional act that would gain me some miraculous redemption. So, stopping at the third step meant I received none of the benefits of a life-changing spiritual experience brought about by doing all of the 12 steps. I was the same me, only without the booze and drugs. It didn't take long for me to find replacements for the booze and drugs. I have had many bottles in my life that did not contain alcohol. It was years later before I discovered that alcohol was but a symptom of my disease – not the cause.
EARLY SOBRIETY ROUND 2 & THE NEED FOR CHANGE
I hated the man I worked for, because I thought he was a cruel man with no feelings for anybody but himself. One day, he took me aside to talk about some incident and said, “I’m really not angry about it - how can I be? You’re just like me.” I was devastated. I wish he had just ranted and raved like he usually did so we could get past it and go on, but he had to say something truthful and I didn’t want to hear it. At this point, however, all I continued to do was not drink and go to meetings (when I felt like it and where I was in the mood to go).
At about a year I decided to marry a girl I had not really known that long. I convinced myself that I loved her, but really it was ore that I loved the idea of being married and having an instant family (she had a 14 year olf son).
10 years passed since that last drink and I still had not really changed much of anything. Life just pretty much went my way and I continued to find substitutes for drinking and drugging as I went along. Intimate relationships came and went, as did friendships in general. Then, finally, the foundation upon which I was building my life began to crumble under the strain of some unpleasant events – none of which were ever supposed to happen to me.
Having ended yet another relationship, I moved to Norwich and was happy as a clam in a spacious, cheap apartment near Mohegan Park. I had several friends and an established A.A. Community of which I was a part. Then, one summer day a phone call came that forever changed my life. My mom needed to see me and wanted me to stop by the house. She had been in and out of the hospital with a condition that we never saw as terminal, but turned out to be – pancreatic cancer. She informed me of this diagnosis when I arrived and, of course, I immediately went to work on forming a rock-solid denial around it, which didn't last. Her sickness became more and more apparent as the weeks passed and could not be denied.
Almost 6 months to the day of her diagnosis, and despite every attempt to thwart it, the end came for my poor mother. I was at her side when she passed after a seriously painful illness and I cursed God for it. None of my prayers were answered and I had neither the grace to accept or understand any of it. I turned my back on God and began to resent everybody in A.A. Who had some cutesy slogan to throw at me or rose colored glasses to put on around the situation. The short of it is that I turned my back on God and the fellowship He had given me to recover with. Little by little the meetings drained away. I would find one reason or another not to go to them until finally there weren't any left. Once I had isolated myself from everybody I convinced myself that they had abandoned me.
Then I proceeded to live through a year of self-induced hell, addicted to any narcotic I could get my hands on. After a bad experience with an anxiety attack brought on by Paxil, the prescribing nurse I had been seeing gave me a script for Xanax. That really kicked things off and I eventually started going to different doctors to get prescriptions to feed my growing love of pills. I was getting sicker and sicker and it wasn't that long before people started to notice. The lies flowed from me like nothing and the drug addiction was becoming more and more obvious. My attempts to cover up the consequences were becoming futile as more and more people noticed. Even my boss at work called me into his office and questioned me about drug or alcohol abuse. He couldn't understand why I would miss meetings, was becoming increasingly late and would often lose my focus and ability to do my job. Right around that time a good friend called my sponsor who was away at the time and told him what was going on with me: the strange behavior, seeing and talking to things that were not there, the blackouts, etc. He called me and confronted me. I knew the jig was up.
I went to work the next day after an early morning visit from a friend to whom I had sent a desperate e-mail the night before – he took the booze I had beside my bed and threw it out and asked me to get help. Later that morning, I did talk to somebody at work who convinced me to go get help at the Pond House (a psychiatric unit of L&M). I went there, of course feeling sorry for myself, and after release went home and tried to resume my normal life (which was far from normal at that point). I continued to drink and those friends that hadn't given up would come by to take me to meetings and throw out any booze they found.
SURRENDER AND THE GRACE OF GOD
I awoke one morning, no different than any other recent morning of despair, but decided to give God a try – as I wanted to stop living the way I was. My life had become totally devoid of meaning and I felt completely and utterly alone. I had worked hard to achieve that status, and came to realize I didn't like it at all. The booze and drugs no longer worked. I asked God to keep me away from a drink or drug for that day and it worked. That night I returned to my knees and thanked Him. The next day I repeated the process and found it worked again. Days turned into weeks, months and eventually years. I knew that I needed to act to protect my new-found sobriety. That action involved one thing and one thing only: change. Complete, total change of who I was.
I commenced to work the 12 steps – not just read about them at a meeting or philosophize about them. I sought out a guy who knew the Big Book and did the steps as they were laid out there. I attended “Back to Basics” meetings and learned all I could about how to incorporate the steps into my life. I set out to make amends and change the man I was. Somehow, along the way, I even grew a conscience. I discovered that it's really quite simple to include the Steps in your daily affairs: you simply need to apply them and then teach them to others. Nothing too complicated!
I don't want to make it sound like I came to A.A. And lived happily ever after – hardly. There have been deep and profound losses, successes and failures. Some of the most key people in my sobriety are gone now. My sponsor George was like a father to me -as was his friend, another of my mentors, Jim P. I have fond memories of hours of conversation and good times we would have at George's house as well as his beach-accessible cottage in Rhode Island before he moved to Florida. Even my little dog Bailey, who was with me through much of that time, has since passed on. I still mourn the loss of those days and those people who were such a vital part of my life, but understand that things are the way they must be and I have a solid foundation because of those who went before.
More than just the steps, I started to build solid friendships and meet a lot of new people by getting involved in service work. I went from GSR to Corrections to DCM, Treasurer, back to DCM and now Answering Service. I'm not even counting the many group-level jobs I've taken. Along the way I even spent a few years doing various jobs on the Christmas Alkathon committee. These things have enriched my life in ways I could never describe.
MY LIFE TODAY
It's late January 2011 as I wrap up this story that has taken me so long to write. Much has transpired these past 12 years: new and solid lifelong friendships have arisen, I am married to a wonderful woman and have a fantastic grandson. Moreover, two dogs have entered my life that are as loved as my little friend Bailey was. I am 52 years old and feel the magic of discovery all over again that I remember from my youth. I continue to work at that job which I was close to losing due to my drug addiction. In three months, God willing, I shall celebrate the 12th year or my sobriety. Should that day arrive, I will undoubtedly remember with deep affection (and perhaps a tear or two) those who helped shape my destiny. They are gone from the face of the earth, but certainly not from my heart or the hearts of many others. Most importantly, I shall thank God for doing for me what I could not do for myself. Thank you Jesus for loving me when I was incapable of loving myself.
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